ISRAEL: Senior Israeli government officials hinted yesterday that the withdrawal from Gaza might be moved forward after opponents of the pullout forced close to 20,000 police and soldiers to spend almost four days ensuring that they did not lead a mass march into the Strip.
Deputy prime minister Ehud Olmert, who is close to prime minister Ariel Sharon, said the large forces needed to police the anti-pullout protest, which drew tens of thousands, had made him consider the need to move up the mid-August withdrawal.
"This confrontation saps a great deal of energy, disrupts the lives of all the country's residents, doesn't lead to any advantage," Mr Olmert told Israel Radio.
"So I would definitely weigh [ an earlier pullout] favourably."
Mr Olmert will also have been worried by the fact that hundreds of anti-pullout protesters have already infiltrated the settlements in Gaza, which are home to 7,500 Jews.
More than 200 people were arrested on Wednesday night as they tried to infiltrate the settlements in Gaza, which have been declared a closed military zone by the army, in an effort to keep out anti-pullout protesters.
The settlers and their supporters believe that if they can flood Gaza with tens of thousands of people, they will be able to thwart the planned evacuation of all 21 settlements there.
The withdrawal had originally been planned for mid-July but was delayed until mid-August by Mr Sharon because of the three-week mourning period that religious Jews observe to mark the destruction of the biblical temples and which starts on Sunday.
But Mr Olmert said that if the opponents of the pullout "think these are appropriate days for protest" then there was no reason why the government shouldn't move the evacuation forward.
In the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, meanwhile, a 13-year-old boy was killed when a rocket fired by Palestinian militants at a Jewish settlement fell short and plummeted into his home. Doctors said the boy's brother, aged seven, was critically injured.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice arrived in Jerusalem yesterday to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on the withdrawal.
"I look forward to talking with both the Israelis and the Palestinians about the need for tight co-ordination," Dr Rice said in Jerusalem as she met foreign minister Silvan Shalom. "I also look forward to talking about the need to resist any efforts by terrorists to destroy this moment of hope."
Contacts between the two sides have declined after recent bloodshed, the worst since a truce was agreed in February.